How SF Chronicle returned to being profitable

The San Francisco Chronicle lost money for 12 years -- $50 million or more per year in 2008 and 2009 alone.

Today the Chronicle has four consecutive profitable years – about 4% per year increases.

How did its leaders do that in this era of troubled, staggering newspapers all over the country?

An improving Bay Area economy, cutbacks made during the lean years, a willingness to try new things on both the editorial and business sides and a renewed commitment to journalistic excellence. And having the paper printed elsewhere, which many newspapers are doing.

And put a woman in charge: Audrey Cooper, then 37, 39, editor in chief for more than 2½ years. She put together an investigative team that came up with startling stories and turned up the heat on government excesses and crime.

The print newspaper has around 220,000 paid Sunday subscribers and 163,000 weekday subscribers, both down from more than 500,000 in the early 2000s.

Read about it for yourself at https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/san-francisco-chronicle.php